Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), for example, fixed-wing and/or rotorcraft vehicles are powered aircraft without a human operator. As such, UAVs provide advantages over manned aircraft by removing humans from situations which may be deemed dangerous, for example, during reconnaissance or during search and rescue operations during a natural disaster. Autonomous UAVs are a natural extension of UAVs and do not require real-time control by a human operator. Autonomous UAVs may be required to land on an unprepared site or terrain without human assistance during mission operations or in an emergency.
Sea-based operation of autonomous UAVs presents a multitude of challenges. It is essential that UAVs be capable of identifying and tracking a ship deck for landing or cargo delivery in order to be a viable and effective option for sea-based operations. Ship decks or other sea-based objects are frequently located in an intensely turbulent environment. Further, significant deck or platform motion from high sea-state conditions causes an autonomous UAV landing target to move constantly with the ship's/object's yawing, pitching, and rolling motion. Current art directed to autonomous landings on sea based object such as ships, for example, has focused on ship deck mounted transponders to facilitate the measurement of the relative pose (e.g., position and orientation) of the aircraft with respect to the landing pad. However, these tracking systems are not only expensive but render an unequipped platform, such as a ship deck, unlandable.